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Unchained Verifiable NFT (uvNFT)

       dApp: https://uvnft.netlify.app/

Project Description:

  • NFTs: Short Analysis

    NFTs have gained in popularity. They can represent digitally any unique (non-fungible) physical or digital asset on a blockchain and their ownership. NFTs have the potential for many use cases (artwork, collectibles, in-game items, intellectual property, event tickets, domain names, real estate, etc.). Among other benefits, they bring trust, transparency, security, cost savings, efficiency, provable scarcity and decentralization.
    NFTs are hosted on many different blockchains using different cryptocurrencies. They reside on the blockchain they are minted on ({chainId - address of the contract - tokenId} is the location and identifier of an NFT at the same time) and they are non-portable. They are traded or swapped within that same blockchain (using the cryptocurrency of that blockchain). Hence, NFTs face liquidity challenges (supply/demand of the blockchain has also an impact on their value)(1)(2).
    Some NFT platforms use centralized data storage to store the NFTs metadata and media.
    Also, the creation process of NFTs often lacks a robust identity proofing of the creator and validation of the link with the asset. The lack of a verifiable identity layer on the internet makes it hard to prove the authenticity of an NFT.
    Usually NFTs are static, being that their metadata and media don’t change over time. Dynamic NFTs are emerging and have lot of potential applications.

  • Proposed Solutions

This project tries to offer solutions to most of these limitations by applying Mobility, Decentralized Off-Chain Storage, Level of Assurance, Decentralized Identifiers and, Verifiable Credentials to NFTs. Here are the high level specifications:

  • Mobility (Chain Agnostic NFT - Cross-Blockchain Transfer):
    An NFT can be moved (transfered) from one chain to another one (or to an off-chain vault/wallet) frictionless and without intermediaries. This increases tremendously the liquidity of the NFTs. To achieve mobility, we separate the NFT location from its identifier: {chainId - address of the contract - tokenId}. Each NFT has a unique Decentralized Identifier (DID). The {chainId - address of the contract - tokenId} becomes a storage location for an NFT. Therefore, using the ERC721 language, moving an NFT becomes ‘as simple’ as “burning” it at the “from” location and “minting” it at the “to” location. A new contract (vcNFT) is needed to support this new specification and the others hereafter.
    Each vcNFT contract on a blockchain can be seen as a Portfolio of assets where NFTs are stored (show room, storefront, vault, etc.). Portfolios are registered in their blockchain Registry allowing NFTs to be discovered. These contracts will have multiple versions to run on multiple blockchains (non EVM as well).
    This Survey of Crosschain Communications Protocols can help identify the best suited technique (Value Swap, Crosschain Messaging, or State Pinning) to implement the Mobility feature. Here is another example of an Asset Transfer protocol (Atomic Swap Relay): Decentralized Cross-Blockchain Asset Transfers.

  • Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs):
    This type of identifier enables “verifiable, decentralized digital identity”. They enable Verifiable Credentials (hereafter) to be verified anywhere at any time. Every entity has a DID in this solution. As indicated above, each NFT has its own public DID. Also, the Creator and Owner(s) have their own public DIDs. Each entity can designate as many delegates (public DIDs) as they want to represent them. The DIDs are registered on a “verifiable data registry”.

  • Verifiable Credentials (VCs):
    They are digital credentials. VCs are tamper-proof, can be verified anywhere, at any time, by anyone and are portable. For each NFT, two types of VCs are issued: Certificate of Authenticity (COA) and Certificate of Ownership (COO). The COA embeds all the information (metadata, media, etc.) about the asset represented by the NFT (subject). It is issued and signed by the creator (Artist for art, Organization for event tickets, Organization/Individual for collectibles, etc.). The NFT holds the COA and makes it available to any Verifier (i.e. potential buyer, current owner, etc.). The COA therefore is saved off-chain and its CID on-chain at the location where the NFT is stored. The COO is issued by the current owner (issuer) about the NFT (subject) to the new owner (holder) when a transaction occurs. The COO contains all the necessary details about the transaction (price, type of license, etc.) according to the use case. The COO is stored off-chain and the CID of the latest COO (CID is a cryptographic hash) is saved on-chain along with the COA. Each new COO embeds the CID of the previous COO, so we keep track of the ownership history (blockchain).

  • Dynamic NFTs:
    When a characteristic of an asset changes over time, the creator (issuer) issues a new COA (new CID - cryptographic hash). The new COA embeds the CID of the previous COA to keep track of the modifications (blockchain). The COA can be broken down into smaller chunks so smaller sections of the COA are updated when changes occur.

  • Decentralized Persistent Off-Chain storage:
    NFTs' COAs (metadata, medias. etc.) and COOs are stored on a verifiable, immutable and persistent decentralized storage system (i.e. IPFS, Filecoin) which provides a unique verifiable Content Identifier (CID – content cryptographic hash) for each file. Therefore, only the CID of a file needs to be stored on-chain (storage location) to retrieve all the information. IPFS provides instant storage, fast and flexible retrieval and Filecoin provides persistence and verifiability (Proof-of-Replication and Proof-of-Spacetime). IPFS acts as Hot storage and Filecoin as Cold storage. Arweave is also a solution. Ceramic is another option which integrates the concepts of CID and DIDs.

  • Level Of Assurance (LOA):
    The identity's Level Of Assurance of an NFT’s creator depends on the process used to identity proof the entity. For example, NIST SP 800-63-A addresses this very issue and suggests different levels based on risk mitigation (IAL1, IAL2 and IAL3). The entity proofing the identity issues a Verifiable Credential (LOA) about the creator (subject and holder) reflecting the Level Of Assurance so that a potential buyer of an NFT can assess the risk before making a decision.

  • Current implementation

    • Chains supported:
      The current implementation supports only EVM compatible chains. The project (contracts) has been deployed on the following tesnets: Ropsten, Rinkeby, Görli, Kovan, Binance Smart Chain, Polygon Matic Mumbai. All the details are here. The current dApp pulls from all these testnets and uses ethers library to connect to all of them.

    • Upgradeable smart contracts (UUPS and Beacon Proxies):
      The current implementations of Registry and vcNFT contracts integrate the ability to be upgraded. They integrate this important mechanism which facilitates the correction of bugs and addition of new functionalities/features. More details are available here.

    • Registry of Portfolios:
      The Registry contract implements the Factory and the Registry patterns by standardizing the creation of the Portfolios (vcNFT contract for example) and making their addresses available (global access point per Chain) and therefore easily discoverable. The registry can support more than one type of Portfolio. Only approved (procedure to be determined) Portfolio contracts will be added to the list of supported contracts to make sure they implement all the required functionalities listed above. More details are available here. Registry is available in Solidity only currently.

    • Portfolios:
      vcNFT is an example of a Portfolio contract. It is pre-registered in the Registry contract (details here). Certificate of Authenticity is fully implemented for static NFTs. The frontend generates the COA in JSON Web Token Signed format of Verifiable Credential: JWS. The did-jwt-vc library from the Decentralized Identity Foundation is used. Certificate Of Ownership is not implemented yet. Ownership is still being driven by the ERC721 specifications (stored in the contract). More details are available here. Since the COO is not implemented, the Mobility concept can’t be fully implemented yet as it requires the COA and COO fully implemented (at least for static NFTs). vcNFT is available in Solidity only currently.

    • Decentralized Identifiers (DID):
      DIDs are implemented for NFTs, Creators and Owners. The Javascript implementation of the Uuniversal Resolver from the Decentralized Identity Foundation is used. The current implementation supports only Ethereum DID method specification since only EMV compatible chains are supported in the current inplementation. All DIDs are Ethereum DIDs. The following libraries are integrated: did-resolver, ethr-did (to generate DIDs) and ethr-did-resolver (to generate the associated DID documents). For the verifiable data registry, the Ethereum DID registry is used (EVM contract). It is a Ethereum blockchain DID registry. It is refered as the ‘ethrDidRegistryContractAddress’ or ‘EthereumDIDRegistry.sol’ in the project.

    • Decentralized Persistent Off-Chain storage:
      IPFS and Filecoin are both used as the Decentralized Persitent Off-Chain storage. It is currently functional. The creation of an NFT generates a COA (metadata in a JSON Web Token Signed format) and media that are stored on IPFS and Filecoin. Only the CID of the COA is stored on-chain. The creation of a Portfolio also stores a media off-chain. The current dApp runs an IPFS client node, connects to a remote IPFS node and uses Web3.storage to deliver the functionality. It uses the following libraries: ipfs-core, ipfs-http-client and web3.storage JS client. Web3.storage dual pins the content to create instant persitence with IPFS.

    • Dynamic NFTs: Only static NFTs are supported currently.

    • Level Of Assurance: This functionality is not implemented yet and we assume all creators have a LOA IAL3 (green) in the current implementation.

    • Wallet: Only Metamask support.

  • Current dApp functionalities

    The NFTs metadata supported in the current version of the dApp are limited to: name, symbol and an image.

    • Metamask Wallet detection, connection and sign in (to confirm ownership of account).
    • Metamask Wallet Chain or Account change.
    • Portfolio Creation (vcNFT contract created with information provided and media IPFS file created).
    • NFT creation (Metamask does not sign JSON Web Token so a new signer (delegate) needs to be created if none exists. COA generated and signed. IPFS files created: COA and media. NFT stored on-chain in the vcNFT Portfolio contract.).
    • NFT info (displays all the information of an NFT and verify the validity of the COA).
    • Display Identity profile with DID document resolved (Ethereum DID Registry).

Deployed Decentralized Application address

https://uvnft.netlify.app/

Directory Structure

Folder Description
client Decentralized App - Frontend
client/src Decentralized App Source code - JavaScript frontend
client/assets Decentralized App assets
client/dist Decentralized App distribution version - JavaScript minified
chain Blockchains code - Smart Contracts (EVM)
chain/build Output folder for compiled contracts (JSON files - artifacts of compilation)
chain/contracts Contracts source code - Solidity
chain/migrations Migration scripts used by truffle to deploy the contracts located in contracts folder
chain/test Truffle test scripts for the contracts located in contracts folder
docs Documentation files including design_pattern_decisions.md and avoiding_common_attacks.md

Running the project

  • Prerequisites

  • Dependencies installation

    In a terminal window, at the root of this project enter: npm run install:all to install all the dependencies (chain and client) required for the project.

  • Compiling Contracts

    In a terminal window, at the root of this project enter: npm run truffle:compile

  • Testing Contracts

    1. Start Ganache and run a testnet on port: 7545 and network_id: 1337
    2. In a terminal window, at the root of this project enter: npm run truffle:test
  • Running Decentralized App Locally

    1. With Visual Studio Code and Live Server Extension:
    2. Without Visual Studio Code:
  • Running Decentralized App with Local testnet

    1. Start Ganache and run a testnet on port: 7545 and network_id: 1337
    2. In a terminal window, at the root of this project enter: npm run truffle:migrate
    3. Follow the instructions in the previous section

Deployed addresses of contracts on testnets

Content of deployed_address.txt is:

{
  "3": {
    "name": "Ethereum Testnet Ropsten",
    "chainId": 3,
    "shortName": "Ropsten",
    "networkId": 3,
    "type": "PoW",
    "chainExplorer": "https://ropsten.etherscan.io/",
    "provider": "infura",
    "portfolioRegistryContractAddress": "0xA56feef6FC3D42bf7d24E9f3B3bC2dbC13e32B9A",
    "ethrDidRegistryContractAddress": "0xdCa7EF03e98e0DC2B855bE647C39ABe984fcF21B"
  },
  "4": {
    "name": "Ethereum Testnet Rinkeby",
    "chainId": 4,
    "shortName": "Rinkeby",
    "networkId": 4,
    "type": "PoA",
    "chainExplorer": "https://ropsten.etherscan.io/",
    "provider": "infura",
    "portfolioRegistryContractAddress": "0xb82d006A73684d84cE949A8DFf7EEf58b028Fb3D",
    "ethrDidRegistryContractAddress": "0xdCa7EF03e98e0DC2B855bE647C39ABe984fcF21B"
  },
  "5": {
    "name": "Ethereum Testnet Görli",
    "chainId": 5,
    "shortName": "Görli",
    "networkId": 5,
    "type": "PoA",
    "chainExplorer": "https://goerli.etherscan.io/",
    "provider": "infura",
    "portfolioRegistryContractAddress": "0x55b3804Fe4a36632939056675fFAC82f76964BAD",
    "ethrDidRegistryContractAddress": "0xdCa7EF03e98e0DC2B855bE647C39ABe984fcF21B"
  },
  "42": {
    "name": "Ethereum Testnet Kovan",
    "chainId": 42,
    "shortName": "Kovan",
    "networkId": 42,
    "type": "PoA",
    "chainExplorer": "https://kovan.etherscan.io/",
    "provider": "infura",
    "portfolioRegistryContractAddress": "0x7b369DdA17Faa1a9B04ED3429B17C37bdfc36CDb",
    "ethrDidRegistryContractAddress": "0xdCa7EF03e98e0DC2B855bE647C39ABe984fcF21B"
  },
  "97": {
    "name": "Ethereum Testnet Binance Smart Chain",
    "chainId": "https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.binance.org:8545",
    "shortName": "bsc-testnet",
    "networkId": 97,
    "type": "PoA",
    "chainExplorer": "https://testnet.bscscan.com/",
    "provider": "binance",
    "portfolioRegistryContractAddress": "0x3EeC17fa693539F36115eA71DfAa256bfC29bE8B",
    "ethrDidRegistryContractAddress": "0xC727fc84F04D331E0687b50c1b7D5A62c4839fDa"
  },
  "80001": {
    "name": "Ethereum Testnet Polygon Matic Mumbai",
    "chainId": "wss://ws-matic-mumbai.chainstacklabs.com/",
    "shortName": "Matic Mumbai",
    "networkId": 80001,
    "type": "PoA",
    "chainExplorer": "https://mumbai.polygonscan.com/",
    "provider": "polygon",
    "portfolioRegistryContractAddress": "0x087c113fF2967D40b7065f9Ae0fbfe390FcD0b45",
    "ethrDidRegistryContractAddress": "0x3C25D4000C3AaAb2B9724697B1de757DECa3C22D"
  }
}

Screencast of project

https://www.loom.com/share/27b43bd6bed8474d8a1482cc21741891

Public Ethereum Account for certification as an NFT

0xf62Bd33316A9aaC7d021D523cAA8d0b85DC65dB0